My Dear Alcohol Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

My dear alcohol
How nice are you to us
Your ingestion takes us to heaven
We float with confidence
We feel we have solutions for
All problems
Your circulation within
Makes us understand
The purpose of our living
What magic you perform
Within us is a still wonder to me
Medical science says a
A number of things
You can do to us
While you are present
In our blood stream
I do not understand a word of it
But, yes, I experience

Such a good person like you
Cannot harm us
But, not less frequently
I hear a number of
Uncomforting things
About you

You are quoted often
A reason for a number
Of road accidents
You, I, understand
Affect the human liver
You, probably, do not know
How important this organ
Is for human beings
My knowledge, though, limited
Says that the liver has a major role
In digestion of food
They say you enlarge liver
And you have the potential
To cause liver cancer
Which can be fatal

The one great strength of yours
Is that you make a person addicted to you
And make the person dependent on you
You do this especially to
Our poor fellow folks, who
Do not earn enough to feed
Your hunger when you are inside
Most often they are the
Ones, who become the
Most blessed of your grace
And bear the brunt of having consumed you
In good faith

Our efforts to
Prohibit or restrict
Your human consumption
Failed miserably
And the painful episodes
Associated with you
Still continue unabatedly

Take it from me,
We do not find fault with you
And your nature

It will be unwise on my part
To request you
To develop a distaste in us for you
On your first consumption

Though I can request you this
Can you change a bit yourself
Intoxicate your consumers
In their first drink itself
So much that they cannot
Even lift the glass a second time